One wouldn’t fault Saturday Night Live UK lead producer James Longman for singing a sad song after the sketch comedy series’ freshman finale hit a viewership low opposite the well-watched Eurovision Song Contest final.
Longman, though, firmly believes a better measure of the SNL offshoot’s Series 1 success is the virality of sketches posted to YouTube and across social media, and the conversation that grew around SNL UK as each week passed.
A full year in the making, SNL UK debuted March 21 to 226,000 total viewers in the overnights, a healthy tally for Sky One that bested rival Channel 4’s broadcast of a Mission Impossible flick. The show then sustained three straight weeks of viewership declines, with Episode 4 down nearly 50 percent from the Tina Fey-hosted premiere.
Upon returning from its first, two-week break, SNL UK with host Nicola Coughlan ticked up 8 percent to 130,000 viewers, and after two successive weeks of additional gains (with hosts Aimee Lou Wood and Hannah Waddingham), Episode 7 landed just 13 percent shy of its premiere (with north of 197,000 vioewers).
The Ncuti Gatwa-hosted May 16 finale, alas, faced off against the Eurovision final (which claimed nearly 6 million viewers). It in turn dropped 56 percent, to a series low of 86K.
Longman, speaking with The Ankler, was asked about the wavering viewership, and he quickly pointed to SNL UK clips amassing “over 20 million views on socials.”
“We’re being shared, we’ve been spoken about,” he noted. “The way people watch TV now, and the way people react to things, it all kind of blends into one, and we are the sum of its parts…. I get messages from dads and mums who say it’s the first show in years they’ve sat down as a family and watched.”
SNL UK debuted to cautious optimism from famously persnickety UK press and as its targets steered more and more (and at times very) British, it commanded greater respect and praise.
Which is all music to Longman’s ears.
“As far as I’m concerned, we are doing exactly what we should be doing, and the feedback from Sky is that they’re absolutely thrilled with us, and they’re supporting us,” he told The Ankler. “We’re ticking boxes, and we’re part of the conversation. We just need to keep being funny.”
The show is set to return in September for an expanded 12-episode second season.
